Obama preparing to waive US sanctions on Iran
If any of you thought that Congress passing sanctions against Iran by votes of 408-8 (House) and 99-0 (Senate) was going to mean that the US would at least unilaterally impose real sanctions against Iran, I suggest that you think again. The Obama administration pushed to have inserted into the bill a right for the President to waive the sanctions, and President Obama made clear when he signed the bill on Friday that he intends to do just that so that Iran can keep right on developing nuclear weapons. The bill, passed overwhelmingly last week in both House of Congress and enacted Thursday by Obama in a White House ceremony attended by Jewish leaders among others, targets third parties that deal with Iran's banking and energy escorts.What could go wrong?
Some pro-Israel groups have already joined Republicans in urging Obama not to exercise several waiver options he has in the bill.
His signing statement -- a signal of how a president intends to administer a law -- suggested that he was ready to use some of the tough new sanctions, but was also reserving for use a waiver for countries that are cooperating with sanctions passed last month by the U.N. Security Council.
"The Act provides a powerful tool against Iran's development of nuclear weapons and support of terrorism, while at the same time preserving flexibility to time and calibrate sanctions," the statement said. "In particular, it provides new authority for addressing the situation of those countries that are closely cooperating in multilateral efforts to constrain Iran. The Act appropriately provides this special authority to waive the application of petroleum-related sanctions provisions to a person from such a closely cooperating country, out of recognition for the key role such a country plays in ongoing multilateral efforts to constrain Iran."
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:31 PM
2 Comments:
Obama wouldn't have pushed for a waiver in the bill if he didn't intend to use it. Put in the context of the milquetoast UNSC sanctions, it suggests that rather than the White House being disappointed with the limited sanctions the Security Council was prepared to approave, Obama is perfectly content to have sanctions in place that don't "have teeth". It's hard to escape the conclusion that he isn't at interested in arresting Iran's nuclear program. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but given his obsession with Israel, perhaps he thinks he needs the Iranian threat for leverage against Israel??????
More good news!
And here you thought the US was finally going to get serious about Iran!
What could go wrong indeed
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